Deadly Experiment
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: Alternate scene for "The Hounds of Baskerville". Sherlock doesn't make it in time, with potentially deadly consequences for John. PLATONIC WHUMP.
1. Fear and Stimulus

An alternate scene from The Hounds of Baskerville. In which Sherlock doesn't get there in time.

This is only the first half, so please stick around!

Enjoy!

"No, come on, come on!" John pleaded as the security machine beeped its "ACCESS DENIED" message. He was still partially blinded by the lights, deafened by the alarm. His hands were shaking with fear, betraying him as he reached for his mobile, pleading again that it would get signal in the lab…

"I know you, don't be ridiculous, pick up!" He whispered, rambling into the handset. Sherlock's phone had rung, but he hadn't answered. He must be lower then, below even the weak reception that John was getting; enough to connect the call but not enough to talk.

He shoved the phone back in his pocket. His eyes were getting better now; he could see the eerily orange-lit sheets on the cages. Just like that his thoughts turned back to the bent metal of the end cage. Something had gotten out. Something had been strong enough to rip and twist the metal and it was free. Trapped in the room with him.

Fear was creeping in; fear he remembered from time spent on the battlefield. Claustrophobia, paranoia, even in the wide space of the lab it was still so very dark and quiet. He knew there was something there, though, and he strained to see it in the gloom. Anything. If he knew where it was he would have a chance to fight it.

He let the beam of his torch skip from one corner to the other, letting it rest for mere seconds on each of the cages, each of the silhouetted machines and tables.

Maybe it was only that machine that was faulty. Even if he couldn't see the creature he knew he needed to get out of the lab as fast as possible. There was help out there, he knew it, but first he had to get out.

He lifted his card, mere centimeters from freedom: and froze. Somewhere in the midst of his own frenzied breathing and the various swishes of sheet fabric shifting in the breeze of fans, he'd heard it. A low growl, he couldn't quite place it but he could feel it redoubling the fear that was already coursing through him. Until this moment he had been prepared for Sherlock to break down and admit that it had all been a farce, one of the mind games he was so fond of, but now he knew it was real, felt what Sherlock had been feeling that night in front of the fireplace.

It was utter doubt and bewilderment. It was a growl, no, a scrape of claw against tile, maybe both. John covered his mouth and nose, both in the hope that it would disguise the sound of his own breathing and allow him to hear the creature more clearly. He was breathing too heavily though; adrenaline had already made holding his breath a near impossible task. His heart beat wildly, reveling in its newfound freedom. If the hound could sense it he was done for.

He had to find safety. He still couldn't see the beast but he could hear it more clearly now, its breathing was growing louder with every passing second. It was gaining on him and he could hear the snapping of its drool-covered jaws. It was running too. John wouldn't have much time before the scrabbling sound of its running became the sound of his own tearing flesh. With one last instantaneous pan of the torch, he took off himself. He might not be able to make it out the door, but he could make it to a cage, and that would give him time to try Sherlock's mobile again. Hopefully the detective had noticed his absence by now and was waiting for him outside.

His panicked hands struggled to lift the sheet and open the cage. He managed, locking the bar behind him until he was sure the beast couldn't open it. Then he sank down to his knees, feeling slight relief wash over him. Meh, small triumphs.

His mobile rang and only years of training stopped him from throwing it across the room. Sherlock! About bloody time!

"It's _here_, it's _in here_ with _me_!" He whispered, it was as quiet as he dared go, hoping Sherlock would still be able to hear, and that the hound wouldn't.

"Where are you?" Came Sherlock's confident reply.

"Get me out, Sherlock, you have got to get me out." John said, "The big lab, the first lab that we saw." Another sound came, more of a bark this time, and John stifled a sob. A second or so passed before Sherlock responded.

"John,_ John_?"

"Now, Sherlock, _please_!" his voice squeaked as he tried to contain the welling terror. The hound had bent its way through the bars before, why was Sherlock wasting time? Why wasn't he ready, why wasn't he here _now_?

"Alright, I'll find you, keep talking." Was that a hint of fear from Sherlock's end? Was he really in that much danger that Sherlock Holmes was afraid for him? He gulped back another sob and looked out the bars of the cage. So far he still couldn't see the monster, even though he could hear it baying wildly, clipping instruments and toppling equipment as it made its way towards him. He was a dead man if it got all the way here, there was no way Sherlock could disable it. At best he might be able to distract it before it tore them both to shreds. He couldn't give the hound any more reason to attack him.

"I can't, it'll hear me."

"Keep talking," Sherlock insisted. "What are you seeing?" He paused for a second; John stayed quiet. "John! What do you see?"

A ruffling sound distracted John for a second, drowning Sherlock's words. John stayed as still as he could, peering out between the bars of his confined space, aware that there was nowhere he could go without Sherlock's help. Then, for the first time, it came into view. It scrabbled around a stainless steel table and right up to a cage two spaces down from where John was where it set about snuffling at the base of the sheet. _Come on, Sherlock_!  
>It was huge: massive ripples of genetically engineered muscle coiled easily under short velvet fur. Its eyes glowed red with a mix of hunger and hate; its mouth, three times the size of any creatures' John had ever encountered dripped with foamy saliva and razor like teeth. It was then that John decided he was probably not getting out alive.<p>

He'd seen patients who'd been attacked by large animals, if not in person at least in photographs projected on the wall in med school. He'd seen people with gruesome scars and gaping claw marks from bears and mountain lions. They were pictures that still haunted his dreams. In the Army he had encountered a fair amount of flesh torn by bullets and shrapnel, skin burned through to fat and bleeding. He knew the human body could sometimes take that sort of beating and survive, even though it was still a battle. But this creature… it looked not only bred to kill, but also _designed_ to. There was a sickly delighted look to it that suggested that it was toying with him, playing with him like a mother who is trying cheer up her child by pretending she can't find him.

"_Captain Watson_, answer me!" Sherlock was still there. He'd nearly forgotten in his terror.

But at the same moment John heard Sherlock's voice so did the hound. It turned toward John, bounding to his cage faster than should have been possible. Its massive jaws closed around one of the bars and tore it away as though it were rubber. John flinched backwards, dropping his phone. The hound pushed its way inside; the thick muscle of its shoulders bent the rest of the bars away. There was no way for John to put up a fight, and no way to run. The beast bore down upon him.

John felt the beast's claws in his flesh, and it wasn't the instant death he had expected from such a well-bred killer. It didn't go for the neck, but instead raked it's razor sharp claws down John's side, ripping fat and muscle and scoring the bone beneath. It was more pain than John had ever felt and it felt, John thought, as though the beast were being gentle.

As the claws took another swipe, this time across his chest, with blood welling up in the scorings and bone shining sickly muted in the laboratory's orange glow, gentle seemed the highest form of cruelty. Worse, it seemed as if the hound were doing it on purpose. As if it seemed to _know_ that it wasn't killing, but _torturing_. Somehow, the beast had been designed not for getting rid of intruders, but for some cruel intelligence to hurt and maim before finally letting its poor victim die.

Death. The wounds inflicted by the creature were too bad. He knew even in his wretched state that if Sherlock came in right now and somehow managed to get the beast away from him, there was little chance of his survival. There was blood on the floor, soaking into his jumper and leeching out onto plastic tile flooring. If the attack had happened in the car park of an A&E, he might have lived, but they were a several hours' drive from a hospital out here on the moors, and it was unlikely they had a full trauma center on base. But again, this was only if Sherlock managed to get here in time.

The lights came on suddenly; they were harsh and far too painful and John closed his eyes against them, also blocking out the continued gnashing as the hound ripped at his flesh. It was a bad idea to close his eyes, but it had been a reflex action, and John was barely fighting death as it were. Sound stopped, light stopped, pain stopped, and John Watson fell into oblivion.

TBC...

Thanks for reading! I loves all of you!


	2. Shock and Blood

Edited for correctness since last upload. Thanks to all who caught the mistake!

It was Sherlock who turned on the lights. What the camera had shown him mere seconds before had been a morbidly fascinating reaction to his experiment. Fear and stimulus. John had gotten ample quantities of both, and had reacted like the perfect realization of the drug's creator's dream. Hallucinating out a _whole scenario_, played out over far longer than Sherlock had hoped was possible. This was a very dangerous substance. He looked forward to studying it in a more controlled environment.

Sherlock approached the cage, wondering seriously if the hallucination would break upon John's seeing him. It seemed likely, but the drug had already proven itself wildly powerful. If it didn't, he might need some assistance. Helping others deal with fear wasn't exactly his strong suit.

He pulled back the curtain as unthreateningly as he could manage. The scene that greeted him, however, was not in the least what he had expected. John didn't cower from him or even try to attack him. John didn't do anything. He only lay limply on the floor, arms above his head in a protective gesture, apparently unconscious. Sherlock rushed over. Overdose was unlikely and he dismissed the idea. What he'd slipped John was barely a quarter of what he had himself ingested, and even though he had built up a decent tolerance over the years, he hadn't had nearly the reaction John had just displayed. There was also no sign of injury. No blood, no apparent trauma. There was nothing to suggest that the good doctor was hurt in any way.

Gently, Sherlock pried John's arms away from his face. John flinched away weakly, eliciting only a half-conscious whimper.

John was in _pain_. Oh, wow. This was very interesting. The reaction had gone beyond merely fear or hallucination and into the realm of a physical response.

Still, that information was far from comforting. Physical manifestations of imagined trauma could be almost as damaging as the real thing. It was rare, but hypochondria could in fact kill.

…And he'd just put his friend through a fear-heightened simulation of a deadly creature's attack. _Good thinking, Sherlock, maybe later you can take on the mafia single-handedly or perhaps go skydiving without a parachute. Either would make great endings to this day of epic miscalculations._

Sherlock scowled at himself.

"John?" He asked uncertainly. Watson didn't reply, his eyes were still screwed up tight and his breathing was ragged and labored. "John!" He said again, this time more forcefully. "You're hallucinating. Dr. Watson, you are _not_ injured." He placed a hand on the doctor's shoulder, trying to reassure him that it was all a dream, that he was alright now, that he was safe. John flinched away again, weaker even than the last time.

"Sh-Sherlock?" he asked. Sherlock could barely hear it, it sounded like he was choking through something liquid in his throat. Sherlock looked, it wasn't blood.

"John, listen to me. You are going to be alright, okay? In fact you're alright right now, you've just been drugged, this whole construct is a hallu-"

"Sherlock, I'm so sorry…" John gasped again.

"No, John, don't do this, you're all right, you're ok! John, _please_!"

"Oh, oh neg…"

"John, stay awake! Whatever you're feeling right now, whatever you think happened, it isn't real. That was all a hallucination. You're fine now, understand me?" John slumped back, his body falling completely limp on the floor, completely deaf to Sherlock's control-panicked speech. His face was greyish and he was still fighting for breath. Sherlock noted painfully that his friend's fight was weakening. His own fault. His mistake. He had to correct this. "Help!" He shouted. Why wasn't anyone else here? People knew about his experiment, people had helped to set it up. So where were they when it had gone wrong?

A young soldier, probably a guard, jogged up to them. "Sir, I'm sorry, you can't be in here anymore, it's-" The man paused, seeing John. "What's happened to him?" Sherlock sent him a murderous glance.

"He's hallucinating. Get some medics down here at once, I don't know how much good they'll do but if we can keep him alive until the drug wears off he's got a chance." The soldier looked at Sherlock as though he couldn't understand what the detective had just said. Sherlock sifted back through the words. The soldier's reaction was understandable, if unacceptable. "What's your name?"

"Gamble, sir. Lieutenant Mitch Gamble" Sherlock paused threateningly.

"Get the medics down here, Lieutenant, or the moment _Captain_ Watson regains consciousness, I am going to suggest your _immediate_ discharge." Gamble's eyes widened for a moment in fear. Not the right fear for the situation, but Sherlock figured it would do. Gamble ran off.

"John, open your eyes!" Sherlock snapped, worry almost crossing his mind-barrier. Now was a time to be stern, but far from a time to panic. He had to think rationally now or it would be over. He would lose, having created the mistake leading to his friend's death.

No. Not if he could help it. Not if he could turn this around. Think.

John Watson was a strong but open-minded individual, even more so since meeting Sherlock. It was rare and pleasing to find someone with that combination, but the traits were only serving to make the hallucination stronger. Perhaps if he could find out what the hallucination was of…

"Sir, my name is Captain Pole, could you tell us what happened?" Sherlock looked up. Two soldiers, each wearing the red cross insignia of a medic stood above him, pulling a gurney behind them. Sherlock stood to face them, somewhat threatening scowl still refusing to slip.

The other got to work while Pole waited for Sherlock to explain.

"He's hallucinating. He was dosed with an unknown compound, which induced a state of extreme fear. The dose of the compound itself would have been harmless; however, there were unforeseen complications—"

"Captain, he's hypotensive, 83/60, his pulse is 150, and blood oxygen content is well below normal. He's in shock, sir. I suggest we get him back to the infirmary." Captain Pole rounded back on Sherlock.

"Come with us back to the infirmary, I still have questions." He ordered, then set about helping the other soldier.

In the infirmary (Sherlock was pleasantly surprised to find that they had one), the pace quickened. Sherlock stayed out of the way, waiting for Captain Pole to return.

The code was an entirely fascinating process, and Sherlock didn't bother to hide his interest, an inaction that earned him several worried looks from the medics. In Sherlock's mind's eye, he saw what John presumably was experiencing. Assuming that the phone conversation had been anything close to accurate, the imaginary hound had attacked, leaving John broken and bleeding in the cage. That left the current scene horribly bloody, something his imagination imprinted upon the infuriating and bloodless reality.

Blood. It hit Sherlock far too late and he cursed his mind for slowing in the wake of Watson's predicament. John had even told him. Oh neg. O negative, a blood type. John had believed himself to be bleeding badly. His current symptoms, the shock and low blood pressure in particular, seemed to confirm that theory. He just had to prove it.

Sherlock pushed through the crowd of medics, smoothly deflecting their attempts to push him back. He reached for the dog tags they had set aside of John on the bed, in preparation for the possible use of a defibrillator. He was right; the blood type John had said was his own.

"Mr. Holmes, I assure you your friend is in good hands, just please stand back." Captain Pole was back, ushering Sherlock out of the way with quite a bit more force than the previous medics. Sherlock raised his arms in mock surrender and allowed himself to be pushed back against the wall of the small infirmary. The room had clearly never seen this kind of action, and was not in anyway designed for all four medics to be working on one patient. "May I ask you to wait outside while my medics see to your friend?" It was phrased as a question, but Sherlock had heard similar questions often enough to know it was meant as an order. He allowed Captain Pole to lead him to the door where he was out of the way, but stopped fast when Pole tried to urge him through it. "I need to talk to you about the circumstances of Captain Watson's illness."

"Fine, we can talk right here, where I can make sure you and your medics aren't about to do anything stupid." Sherlock stated, bracing himself against the doorframe with an air of stunning nonchalance. Pole, surprisingly, didn't try to force the issue.

"I assure you, my men are highly trained. They are very good at what they do." Pole said irritably.

"Yes, of that I have no doubt." Sherlock said, in a way that implied quite a bit of doubt. Pole seemed to notice this, but waited for Sherlock's continuation. "He's in shock. Have you figured out what kind yet?"

"Distributive." Pole said. "Possibly caused by an acute adrenal deficiency or sepsis of some sort. We'll get him sorted out."

"Wrong. Hypovolemic." Pole raised an eyebrow at the detective's revelation.

"That's impossible. He hasn't lost any blood, nor is he dehydrated to the point of shock." Pole corrected.

"Humor me. Cover your bases. The last thing he said before losing consciousness was his blood type. Why would we need to know that if not to replace lost blood?" Sherlock challenged him.

"And what state of mind was he in before he lost consciousness? We're not going to treat him for something he doesn't have, Mr. Holmes."

"Then you'd better tell your nurse not to give him the third dose of Narcan. You wouldn't want to treat him for that overdose he's also not having." Sherlock smirked, the irony of the situation not lost on him. If only he could get them to see what was going on, but he didn't have time to explain the situation accurately, and Pole was being infuriatingly suspicious. Understandable, but again, unacceptable.

"That's different. We have reason to suspect an overdose, based on your own story, Mr. Holmes. If you are not going to help anymore, please leave the room." Pole demanded, shoving Sherlock out the door.

"Wait! Listen. Whole blood would still bring up his blood pressure, which by your medic's own word seems pretty dire. Even if it isn't hypovolemic shock, which it _is_, it's a win-win scenario." Pole ignored him, stepped out after him, and closed the door. Sherlock heard the lock click with a sense of sudden finality. It would take a keycard and a password to enter the room again. He wouldn't be allowed back in. Pole fumbled with a radio earpiece.

"This is Captain Pole, requesting a security team to the infirmary. It turns out Mr. Holmes is being a bit of a problem."

_Request acknowledged, Captain, on our way._

"You don't know what you're doing, Captain! The only chance your patient has to live is if you listen to me and treat him as though he has been mauled. That man is my friend, and I will not let you kill him!" Before Sherlock could finish, Pole's security team rounded the corner. Four trained soldiers against one wirey detective. Sherlock knew he didn't really stand a chance against them. He wasn't much good in an outmatched fight and was barely able to make a run for it before they were on top of him. He struggled wildly, but their combined weight and training forced him down and into handcuffs. The only thing he could think was that some time in in the last ten minutes, instead of making up for his experiment, he had only made things worse. If he had ever been so before, now John was really in trouble.

TBC...

Thank you everyone who reviewed, favorited and alerted so far! Keep 'em coming!


	3. Guts and Guesswork

Alright, I have an apology to make. In three parts.  
>Part 1: The time it's taken me to upload this: you have all been such a great audience, and I thank you all for sticking with this even though it's taken longer than expected.<br>Part 2: Erm...once again I seemed to have misjudged the length of this fic. Rest assured, the last chapter is nearly complete, however, erm... this isn't it. I didn't exactly count on this turning into an actual story. It was originally just meant to be a oneshot.  
>Part 3: <em>This<em> chapter was meant to be called "Guts and Guesswork", the _last_ chapter was supposed to be called "Shock and Blood".

Anyway, enjoy!

Captain Pole watched the soldiers drag the livid Holmes down the hall toward the detention area. It probably hadn't been used in decades for anything other than storage (to lock someone up here at Baskerville would probably constitute a security breach) but the cells were probably the most secure in the world- even a Holmes' reputation or his friend's rank wouldn't be able to get him out of one unaided.

Pole sighed and headed back into the room. He felt in over his head for some reason; all he'd had to deal with in the last four years of working here were chemical burns, animal bites, and the flu. With recent precautions initiated, it hadn't even been that.

But shock? That shouldn't be_ so_ much of a biggie. Even after years out of practice, an army medic should be able to treat for shock. As long as the source was known and could be rectified, and as long as there was a way to bring up the blood pressure, as long as not too much time had passed, the patient would live.

And that's what they were doing. One of his underlings had already started a large-bore IV, and he'd ordered the start of vasopressors before leaving to talk to Holmes. But even with the generic interventions and no evidence that John had moved beyond the compensatory stage, Pole had to admit John wasn't doing well. An oxygen mask obscured his face, but looking at the monitor, there was very poor perfusion. If they didn't find the cause soon, John would suffer severe organ damage, and possibly-.

"Sir, his blood-oxygen content is down to 90, and he's already on 100% oxygen. Do you suggest intubation?" One of the younger medics said, pointing at the screen.

Crap.

"Yes. Go!" He paused for a moment, watching the medics scramble to recall knowledge they hadn't used since being assigned here. He needed to find the cause, and his only lead –that John was suffering from an overdose of the mystery compound Holmes had alluded to- was bust. The Narcan hadn't worked, and everything else he thought of seemed unlikely. It was distributive shock, but within that definition, there were hundreds of causes. He was running out of useful ideas.

Well, he thought ruefully, there was _one_.

_Ok, ok, Sherlock, think!_ _Pole isn't going to be able to save John. That's fine, it just means you need to._

Sherlock was no John, though, when it came to this sort of thing. He only knew about the Narcan because John kept two doses in the drawer by his bed, should he at some point find Sherlock overdosed on heroin. He only knew about the types of shock because he'd experienced them. The rest had basically been a confident mix of guts and educated guesswork. Damn. He had to think of something.

The cell was small and impenetrable. It was in the basement, some type of converted bomb shelter, most likely. Or possibly just a bomb shelter; it was a military base after all. Sherlock slumped against one of the concrete walls. The door was steel and opened inward: no way to force an escape. His only possible contact with the outside world was the 10cm by 40cm bulletproof glass window set into the door with industrial rivets. Through it he could see a guard seated at a desk in the corner of the room, with his back turned and watching black-and-white security feeds on a computer screen. If Sherlock were to suddenly catch on fire, the man probably wouldn't notice until he toggled to the camera feed from inside Sherlock's cell.

At least for now, fear was winning out over boredom. He could barely comprehend what boredom in this cell would be like without the need to escape. For one thing, he'd long since given up pounding the door with his fists or shouting. Either the cell was soundproof or the guard had been instructed not to react to anything he did. It wasn't that Sherlock had expected anything different, on the contrary, he'd more or less come quietly, explaining to various guards, scientists he'd been marched past, and finally the man who'd taken his coat before locking the cell door behind him, what was wrong with Captain doctor John Watson.

They'd all ignored his plea.

There was only one thing now that could save John, and Sherlock hoped it wasn't merely desperation that drove his mind to the thought. Captain Pole may be closed-minded, officious, and callus, but when it came down to it, he was still a medic. It might get dangerous, but eventually, if nothing he did worked, he wouldn't let John die if there was a chance that Sherlock's information could save him. Unless he was wrong and that was just John's mentality. He hoped he wasn't wrong.

Sifting back through their conversation, though, Sherlock began to realize that even this might be far too hopeful a thought. In the control-panicked state he was in when he first saw John, he had assumed the Captain had been in on the experiment. The medic's reactions made a bit more sense now, if he'd had only what Pole knew, he might not have grasped- No, wait, _he_ would have been able to do it, there had been hints, just not ones the normal person would have spotted. John's position on the floor, the pain he was in, the clear setup with the bent metal of the cage. He could have done it.

But that wasn't the point now. He'd lost control of himself, failed to assume that this man was not his intellectual equal. And in so doing, entirely failed, once again, to help John in the slightest.

There was a hint of movement beyond the window and Sherlock leapt up to see what was going on. Captain Pole had come back. He handed the soldier at the desk a piece of paper, and signed another, then walked over to Sherlock's cell. _Oh, happy days _Sherlock's deadpan mind-voice intoned. He had a second chance at explaining.

Pole didn't open the door. Instead, he pressed a button on an intercom to the side of the cell, and Sherlock heard a popping sound as it activated.

"Mr. Holmes." The voice was staticky but level. Pole hadn't given up on confidence, and his clipped tone suggested John wasn't dead. Yet. "Start from the beginning. Tell me everything that happened." Sherlock took a breath before responding. Pole's request posed a problem. It was one thing to tell the Captain what was happening right now to his friend, but it was entirely different to give away the information that he knew things about what was happening at Baskerville. He decided to sidestep the question. "He was drugged with a hallucinogen, but the damage to his body comes from a place far more deadly. His mind." Pole raised an eyebrow, but motioned for Sherlock to continue. "We were performing an experiment to test the effects of the compound on human subjects." Not technically a lie. "We set up an environment which would induce fear. That fear, heightened by the hallucinogen and fed by rumors of a hound on the moor, created the creature that mauled him. He sustained major blood loss and-"

"He didn't sustain any blood loss, he hasn't been mauled. We've been over this."

"He _thinks_ he has." Sherlock reminded Pole. "And, strengthened by the drug, that thought became a reality for his body. You still don't know the cause of the shock because you can't see it. But try to imagine it from John's point of view. From his vantage point, he's bleeding out on your bed in the infirmary, and nobody seems to be treating him." Pole closed his eyes for a second, clearly not understanding.

"You have to understand that your idea is completely preposterous. You're saying that because the drug is in his system, everything he thinks becomes reality?"

"For him, yes. But to John, he's not just thinking it, he's experiencing it. That's the interesting part. The drug isn't just making him hallucinate; it's giving his very mind the wrong signals. His mind receives the false feedback, and channels it into the shock process in order to do what it thinks is keeping him alive. But it isn't, it's killing him instead, and that's what makes it so genius. It tricks the body into unconsciously committing suicide."

"How did you work that out?"

"I had an idea, and it went too far. Now we have to find a way to reverse the process." Sherlock said guiltily.

"Any suggestions?"

"Maybe if we treat him as though he _were_ mauled, his body might realize it and reverse the process itself? I don't know. You're already treating him for shock, get him some blood and start bandaging the parts of him he thinks are bleeding freely."

"We don't have blood to give him. This is an army research base. People don't get shot or mauled here." Pole said. Sherlock's eyes widened for a moment, his mind quickly recalculating the scenario with the new information. "What?"

"Well then, we have one other option. We find a way to break the hallucination."

Reviews (and reviewers) loved and appreciated!


	4. Comfort and Realization

Here it is! The endish part of the story. I say end_ish_ because there is one more short little epilogue thingy, but as far as the exciting and climactic storyness goes, here you are. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Pole stood silently in front of the cell for several seconds before responding. What Holmes was suggesting was preposterous, but if there were only the slightest possibility that what he was saying was true, then there was a chance that John Watson would live; because at least when he had left the infirmary, that had still been up in the air.<p>

On the other hand, if he was trusting Watson's life to a man with no medical training and who was clearly guessing at best, that was negligence, which could also lead to Watson's death. As well as a hell of a lot of trouble for him legally.

Pole released the intercom button, sensing briefly that from behind the soundproof door Holmes was shouting at him in frustration. He had to think about this. He needed time for what Holmes was suggesting to sink in. He needed time to come up with a plan.

Unfortunately, it was all time he didn't have. A phone rang from the guard's desk, breaking his thoughts. The guard answered.

"It's for you, Captain." He said to Pole. "It's urgent, sir, what would you like me to tell them?"

"I'll take it here, soldier." Pole said, taking the phone from the guard's hand.  
>"This is Captain Pole." He answered. "Please tell me Watson's still breathing."<p>

"He is sir, he's been intubated." The medic responded, not understanding the Captain's stab at humor.

"Something I should know, or did you just call me for the fun of it?"

"Sorry, sir. There's something odd happening. He's in a medically induced coma, or he should be, at least, with as many sedatives as we've given him for the trach."

"But?" Pole prompted.

"But… he's still a GCS 8t." Puzzling. A Glasgow Coma Scale score of 8t meant that even with the trach (which reduced part of the score to 1), he wasn't anywhere near a coma.

"Does his file show any history of drug use?"

"That was our first thought as well, but no sir. Whatever he ingested before seems to be cancelling the effects of the sedative." Pole looked up at Holmes's expectant but frustrated face behind the glass.

"Alright, I'll be there in a minute, and I'm bringing Holmes. This may seem completely insane, but I'm going along with his idea."

"Are you sure that's a good plan, sir?" The medic asked.

"No, but at the moment it's our only plan." Pole placed the phone back on the cradle, the medic's words echoing in his head. Was he making the right choice in trusting Holmes? Possibly, possibly not. Would he? Yes, because it was the only plan he had at the moment, and Holmes seemed certain it would work. In any case, the idea seemed valid; he just hoped that Holmes could see it through.

"Soldier, I'm taking this prisoner with me."

"Sir, you were the one-."

"I changed my mind, soldier."

"None of my business, sir, just sign here." The guard replied, handing a clipboard and biometric scanner to Pole.

"That it?" he asked.

"Yup. I'll unlock the cell."

Sherlock didn't so much allow Pole to escort _him_ out as he did drag _Pole_ back through the detention area doors and down the hallway to the elevator. Combined, the phone call and letting him out of his cell could only mean one thing, and that thing didn't exactly bode well for John.

"Wait! Wait, there's something I need to explain!" Pole shouted as Sherlock stabbed the elevator button six times and then began to look for the stairs.

"Then start talking, I can listen and hurry at the same time."

"Gifted like that, are you?" Pole asked under his breath. Sherlock seemed not to hear.

"Give me your card." Sherlock demanded, having found the staircase that would lead them back to the infirmary. The elevator still hadn't arrived.

"My what?"

"Your ID. Give. Me. Now!" Sherlock nearly shouted. "And you haven't explained anything yet!" He pointed out. Pole sighed and slid the card through the security slot by the staircase doors, but Sherlock beat him to punching in the code. "Don't bother changing it, John lives and your secret's safe with me." Sherlock said matter-of-factly to Pole's stunned expression. It didn't seem like a threat, but then this man hadn't really cared much for rank except when he was using Watson's to get his way, and if he had an ID code, and that would be enough to cause damage.

Sherlock raced up three flights of stairs, dragging Pole behind him like a bag of laundry. Pole found it difficult, but he explained the best he could about John's condition and the drug counteracting the sedatives as they ran faster and faster towards the infirmary. When they arrived, Sherlock wasn't even breathing heavily.

"It isn't the hallucinogen. It's his mind. From now on its all his mind." Sherlock insisted. "When we get inside, take another blood sample, test it, and then compare the amount of drug in his system to what there was in his system when you brought him in. We need to see how fast he's metabolizing it."

"That's a given, I'm sure my medics have already figured that out." Pole said. Sherlock held his hand out for the card to open the infirmary doors. Pole didn't give it to him.

"Mr. Holmes, I promise I will let you do whatever you feel it right to save your friend, regardless of your answer, but I would like to know one thing before I let you in." Pole said, forcing Sherlock to look at him in the eyes.

"What is it?" Sherlock asked urgently.

"Do you have any proof at all of what's wrong with Watson, or are you just going by a gut feeling?" Pole asked. Sherlock stopped for a second, slightly affronted by the question. When he answered, it was in an urgent voice

"Captain Pole, I don't make decisions based on gut feeling. I don't have proof; in my line of work proof is a very relative term. What I do have is evidence. Evidence that what's wrong with John is completely in his mind." He paused, staring unwaveringly back at Pole. "I know for a fact that other people have been exposed to the drug in Watson's system. I know for a fact that the dose Watson ingested was tiny compared to the doses ingested by others. I also know for a fact that not everyone exposed to the drug had hallucinations, or even experienced any sort of heightened sense of fear. From this I can deduce that there needed to be two separate elements, the drug _and_ the environment, for the effect to live up to it's potential. Therefore the fear was a product of the mind, and so therefore the extended effects of that fear, including the shock that's killing him and the adrenalin that is counteracting the sedatives, were ordered by his mind. Do you understand why the only way to solve this is to break the hallucination?" Sherlock asked. Pole nodded. "Good. Now we just have to do it." Pole nodded, humbled. "Key card?" Sherlock prompted. Pole handed it over.

"But what do you have in mind, Mr. Holmes?" Pole asked. "We barely even know what the hallucination is of."

"No, Captain, _you_ barely know what the hallucination is of because you still haven't fully wrapped your mind around what's happening. I have. For now I'll talk to him, see if that works. If it doesn't, we'll go with my original plan, which was to humor him until it passes, or until we figure out something better." Pole nodded and handed over the card, then pulled it back again.

"What do you mean by that?" He asked.

"By what?"

"About having wrapped _your_ head around the effects of the drug." Sherlock paused for a moment. He looked at the keycard, then back at Pole's set face. He wouldn't get the card until Pole got the answer he wanted. Fine.

"I have previous." He stated. Pole raised an eyebrow but finally gave the card to Holmes.

"Okay, save your friend and you don't even have to tell me the rest of that story."

The first thing Sherlock noticed was how quiet the infirmary had become. Barely a half-hour before, the medics had been calling orders and informing each other of pertinent information. Now there was only one person there, and he stood off to the side, his eyes shifting between John's struggling form and the monitor. He looked up as Sherlock and Pole entered the room.

"Leave us." Sherlock said to the medic, who looked at Pole for approval. Pole nodded.

Now Sherlock rounded on John. Pale. Sweaty. Definitely alive but in also definitely still in a great deal of pain. His breathing was uneven and catchy beneath the oxygen mask. Someone had extubated him when the sedatives hadn't worked and breathing seemed to be becoming more and more difficult.

"Come on, John. Come on." Sherlock mumbled. He had no idea of what to say and the words of hollow encouragement sounded strange and somehow foreign coming from his mouth. Suddenly he wasn't sure that his plan would work. It hinged on him being able to provide comfort, and not in proofs and numbers and extrapolations and deductions as he would have hoped for had their roles been reversed; but in compassion and encouragement and sympathy and empathy. And that was where things became difficult for him. By definition, he had empathy for this. He'd felt fear that night by the fire. Doubt. Confusion. The feeling that he couldn't trust his own senses. All because of the drug. But what would have come as comfort to him last night would have been the knowledge that he'd been drugged or to have Watson telling him what was real and what was not in a solid, concise manner. He'd already tried that with Watson, though. It hadn't worked, and that was because, fundamentally, he and Watson worked differently when it came to the idea of comfort.

He took the chair Pole offered him and sat down at the edge of Watson's bed. Once again he tried to imagine the scene Watson was experiencing. He pictured the white sheets blossoming with drying blood. The lack of people in the room. The sheer terror when nobody was helping him. The helplessness when he realized there was nothing he could do to make them understand why he was dying and how they should help him. Frustration coupled with fear coupled with anger and horrible, horrible pain that he couldn't block out that radiated from the wounds all over his body. The wounds he knew would soon end his life if no one stepped up to the plate and helped him.

Sherlock tried to reconcile it all in his mind. The feelings were so dull to him, so fragile when he did manage to bring them to the surface. He _didn't_ feel this way, _couldn't_ feel this way. But he had to.

Gingerly he reached out to hold John's hand. He wasn't sure what that expressed exactly, but he didn't really care. It was something he'd seen John do for patients on more than one occasion. Even if there was no medical relevance, at least maybe it was a way to show that there was someone there, that they weren't completely alone. John flinched away from his hand at the touch and Sherlock wasn't quite sure what to do with the reaction.

"It's me, John." He said quietly. "We're friends, you know. I've… never really been able to call anyone that." He wished Pole would leave the room. "Listen, I know you're hurting. I want you to know that you're not alone in this. You're going to be okay." Sherlock grimaced at his own words. It disgusted him not to be able to tell John the truth, reiterate what he'd said before about the drug and the hallucination and the experiment and his mistake, but that hadn't worked before and he'd made the decision to stick with this route of helping John. "There's blood, a lot of it and you're scared and exhausted and you want someone to care for you. But they can't do it." He was saying it out loud more for himself than for the wounded doctor, but as he drew breath to continue the commentary, John seemed to notice, turning his head ever so slightly in Holmes' direction. Sherlock tried again, a little awkwardly, to take hold of John's hand. This time, John took hold. He was listening. "John? You have to keep listening to me. You're a scientist, John, a doctor. You know what's happening to you. You need to show me, because I don't." He knew John's mind wouldn't be affording him the luxury of speech or even coordinated movement, but if he could get him to stay conscious, if he could get John's mind on what it needed to do to fix him…

"What are you doing?" Pole whispered.

"His mind nearly killed him." Sherlock began, whispering, trying to keep his voice low so Watson wouldn't hear the plan. "The vividness of the hallucination- he's a doctor- he knows every last bit of the process that would lead to his death. He also knows every last bit of what his body would need to do to heal. I'm trying to use the drug in a way it was never designed for, to undo it's own damage. If I can make Watson's mind go through the procedure for healing similar wounds, it doesn't matter what we actually do, because he'll hallucinate the whole thing." Pole nodded slowly.

"Are you sure?"

"Mostly."

"That's an interesting approach."

"It will be fascinating if it works. And it probably will if there's still enough of the drug in his system to keep a hallucination going." Sherlock said grimly, turning back to John, who had pulled Sherlock's hand closer to what in his mind's eye he saw was a freely bleeding claw mark. "Yes" Sherlock said. "I know. Bandages. They put them on when you passed out earlier." Sherlock saw John relax a bit. He forced the image in his own mind to change to reflect what he had just told Watson. No more blood. just clean, white dressings. It was working. The lie was comforting to John and that was- ? Sherlock paused for a second, understanding suddenly dawning on him. He knew what the drug did, a hundred times the complexity of what he'd originally thought. He would have stopped to marvel at the compound's elegance if he'd had the time.

Comfort. That was the key to turning around the hallucination! The drug didn't work _exclusively_ on fear. The focus on fear was just because on a battlefield, fear would be the strongest and most easily induced state. Change the fear to comfort or happiness or contentment and it would change the hallucination too! It could work with any strong emotion. He himself had not felt predominately fear at all, but doubt. Which for him was something far more threatening. "John, focus on me. I'm here to help you. So is Captain Pole. Anything you need. Just focus on what needs to happen and we'll do it, okay?" Sherlock said, in as comforting a tone as he could manage. The bedside manner was a forgery on his part, most of his brain was screaming at him to tell John the truth. But there could be no doubt or the fear would return and take over. They didn't need to do anything, just as long as John hallucinated that it was happening, it would save him. "You don't even have to say it, just think it. Just think it and-" Sherlock cut off and looked wide-eyed between John, Pole, and the monitor. John had suddenly gone completely limp. "John! John, come on, fight it. You'll be alright, I promise, just keep-"

"Mr. Holmes, it's alright! I don't believe it, but I think what you did worked."

"What?"

"Vitals are stabilizing, he's coming out of shock."

"But he's-"

"I know, the sedatives are finally taking effect. You said the hallucination was what kept them from working and you managed to break it." Pole said, dumbfounded. Then he sharpened again. "For the record though, Mr. Holmes, that's not how it normally works."

Sherlock sat back in the chair, looking almost as surprised as Pole had. For some odd reason he wanted to laugh at the absurd intensity that had consumed the last several minutes. The outlandishness of the task he'd undertaken had both overwhelmed him and given him a fascinating and exhilarating problem to solve. For now though, there was no drive to find some other insane task to complete as there would be normally. He felt perfectly content to sit at John's bedside and watch as Pole adjusted leads and equipment and wait for his friend to wake up. For the first time, even though it was faint and little and a bit childish, Sherlock felt a spark of comfort in just watching someone else breathe.

* * *

><p>Whewph! Yup. Finished, sort of. There will be an epilogue, as I said earlier, but I felt this chapter was getting a bit long to tack it on here. Thank you all! I think this is the most response, in alerts and favorites at least, that I've gotten for any story. Thanks for continuing to bug me about it until I got it done. I hope you all liked it!<p>

~ TheShadowArchitect


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